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Conditioning

Because there were vocabulary words I knew beforehand, I chose a psychology term I learned this semester. The word I will remember five years from now is conditioned. There were plenty of types of conditioning and countless experiments based on conditioning. In and of itself, the term is quite interesting to me. It can effect many people, no matter what the age, as well as animals.

An easy definition is to make a person or animal behave in a certain way by manipulating the way they think. This is done using a particular sense. The sense of sound was used when Pavlov rang a bell before feeding a dog. He then varied ringing the bell, feeding the dog and when they would go together. He noted the dogs salivation. This experiment was really interesting to me which helps me to remember conditioning.

Conditioning can lead to many different outcomes and can vary if one is using classical or operant. Voluntary and involuntary behaviors amaze me. I think it is intriguing how the brain works to respond to different situations and stimuli. Below is a cartoon mouse displaying a great example of conditioning.

2 Comments

I agree that conditioning is one of the most important concept that we've learned throughout the semester. I also agree that "conditioning" is a word that will be engraved in our mind because of its involvement with psychology and many other things.

To this day, I still think that the art of conditioning is one of the most used tools of psychology in our daily interactions with others and ourselves. Every time I find myself doing something out of habit or find myself not doing something because of something bad that happened, I immediately think of Pavlov. Sounds creepy, but true.